I have never felt particularly comfortable discussing the concept of love. It's not a particularly masculine concept by any stretch, and it's an outpouring of emotions that can really make me feel vulnerable. I'm going to try to overcome that barrier here.
The movie Once had a profound impact on my perception of what romantic types like to call true love, namely that it isn't necessarily true love. I used to believe in this more strict form of love - if it's true love, it shouldn't end. It can last forever. Both parties can somehow be together and rarely get angry or impatient with one another. They have the same interests, the same opinions, the same hopes and dreams.
This kind of love seems extremely appealing in theory. It would give you someone who understood you perfectly and would always be there. The connection would be infallible. But as I went through my early adolescent years I didn't see this kind of thing happening, to me or anyone else. I expected it to, and I didn't see it as unrealistic. But I really think I spent a lot of that time looking for the wrong thing.
The portrayal of a love story in Once is radically different from the traditional concept. It's not love at first sight, there's very little focus on a physical relationship, and they don't even end up together. It doesn't seem to make much sense, and the first time I watched the movie it left me pretty sad at the end, even though the characters were happy. It didn't feel quite right to me, like there was some kind of injustice that had occurred.
This time around, though, I took some different ideas out of it. I can't really say the Once single-handedly changed my ideas about love, but it did sort of "finalize" them in a way. I was able to appreciate the good things that came out of this much shorter, oddly resolved love. It was a different kind of experience: two people came together, had influence on each other and were both changed for the better. Then they parted ways. I think that speaks powerfully to the true form of love. Both were still happy in the aftermath, even though it hadn't "worked out" in the traditional sense.
Cormac!
ReplyDeleteNice post, I really liked reading it. I had a lot of the same thoughts while watching the movie actually.
To be honest, I’ve always been a believer in the idea of true love. Like you, I always imagined a kind of love that lasted forever, and that involved two people that were absolutely perfect for each other. Then, like you, as I grew up, I began to see beyond the Disney portrayals of love. In the real world, love failed a lot more times than it succeeded, and I didn’t see very many examples of a true-and-perfect love.
Once showed me the alternative to what I used to think was the only “true” form of love. It showed people who were content to be around each other, even though they didn’t have a very physical relationship and didn’t end up together in the end. At first I was upset (like you), but then I realized that this is actually a much more realistic version of love, and although it couldn’t compare to my former idealistic version I could definitely see the beauty in this sort of relationship.
I still believe in true love, but I’ve realized that it’s incredibly rare to see it in real life. So in the mean time, I’ll keep my mind more open to other, more likely version of love. Thanks for the post!